The Columbia History of Chinese Literature is a comprehensive yet portable guide to China's vast literary traditions. Stretching from earliest times to the present, the text features original contributions by leading specialists working in all genres and periods. Chapters cover poetry, prose, fiction, and drama, and consider such contextual subjects as popular culture, the impact of religion, the role of women, and China's relationship with non-Sinitic languages and peoples. Opening with a major section on the linguistic and intellectual foundations of Chinese literature, the anthology traces the development of forms and movements over time, along with critical trends, and pays particular attention to the premodern canon.

梅維恒（Victor H. Mair）

1943年生，哈佛大學中國文學博士，著名漢學傢，賓夕法尼亞大學亞洲及中東研究係教授、賓大考古及人類學博物館顧問，還擔任京都大學、香港大學、北京大學、四川大學等多所高校的兼任教職；精通中文、日文、藏文和梵文，被認為是當代西方漢學界最具開拓精神的學人，著述宏豐，研究領域包括：中國語言文學、中古史、敦煌學。

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梅維恒的學生如此評價的學術成就：“梅維恒一直大麵積撒網，他能透過我們在課堂上閱讀的文獻，不斷以他齣人意錶的觀察來讓我們感到驚奇。今天，人們總是以跨學科的名義來試圖仿效世界主義，但對於那時的梅維恒而言，這並非時尚：他隻是擁有難以饜足的求知與開拓的欲望。無疑的是，突破界限是我們這位導師主要的學術風格，這種風格不斷從地理、範疇方麵追問哪裏是這些邊界之所在。盡管從不玩弄時髦術語，但梅維恒卻一直追問著這樣的現象與議題——它們都涉及到多元文化、復雜性、他異性及底層，他又能對其工作加以認真的語言分析。語言學常被認為是十九世紀的遺留之物而被唾棄，而梅維恒證明瞭語言學的成功，因為以其探討瞭二十一世紀的議題。”（Victor has always cast his nets widely, and he could routinely amaze uswith observations far afield from the Chinese text we were reading in class. Todaypeople often attempt to simulate this cosmopolitanism under the rubric ofinterdisciplinary study, but for Victor, it was quite untrendy: he simply hadan insatiable appetite for knowledge and pushing boundaries. Indeed,border-crossing has been our mentor's dominant mode of scholarship, a mode thathas constantly interrogated where those very borders are both geographicallyand categorically. Though never sporting fashionable jargon, Victor has alwaystaken on phenomena and issues that engage aspects of multiculturalism, hybridity,alterity, and the subaltern, while remarkably grounding his work in painstakingphilological analysis. Victor demonstrates the success of philology, oftendismissed as a nineteenth-century holdover, for investigatingtwenty-first-century concerns.）